Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Wagner’s Tannhäuser in the Scanner

Science is a curious madam. She wants to know where you’ve been, what you’ve done and how you did it. She just has to!

Here’s a pretty amazing video on how this curious madam decided to see what happens to the vocal chords of a professional singer on the inside. Well, rather say from the side. Michael Volle, a German operatic baritone, went inside of the MRI scanner for another performance. He sang the popular yet challenging aria from Richard Wagner’s opera “Tannhäuser” and his moves were carefully watched and analyzed.

Experts say that this experiment might help to solve some of the mysteries concerning the way operatic singers belt out sounds and will also provide more information on the mechanisms and special features of the vocal tract in general.


Haydn's Miracle Symphony No.102

They call Joseph Haydn the father in music. He is considered to be, indirectly, the father of both the symphony and the string quartet, hav...